So last night we fired up our first session of Wild Talents. It was definitely a new experience for me as a DM. I tried two deliberate departures from my history of game running: mini-less gaming and a conscious move towards roll-lightplay.
The mini-less gameplay was fantastic. This is probably a non-event for people who have run games without miniatures to represent their characters, but the immersion and narrative levels amped up significantly. I was nervous trying this out, but it took no time to adjust. Of course I believe that Wild Talents lends itself very well to this kind of play, so that may have been a factor in adjusting to a blank surface in front of me and the players.
I was equally impressed by the roll-light gaming. Wild Talents (review pending) encourages only rolling during 1) combat 2) situations with a risk of failure OR 3) when time is an issue. Again, this was a big departure from the “d20” system where my players were asking to make repeated checks for skills and abilities. Now, as a DM, I could have very easily made this gameplay distinction in my d20-based gaming, but...well...I didn't. I found that players actually seek out rolling dice as much as possible in my d20 based games. They enjoyed the sense of snaking through cover while stopping and listening to the guards down the hall, rolling dice along the way.
Wrapping up, I can't say that every game I run from now on will be converted to minimal rolling and lots of descriptive words with gestures at a blank table, but I encourage DMs to try a session or two of this and see how their group responds. Maybe a scene where your party attends the ball and tries to impress the Duke or the day about town after putting the BBEG to the sword?
I thought it was a blast too. Definitely noticed it was geared more towards role play than roll play and I liked it. Looking forward to our next session.
ReplyDeleteI like the mini-less play. Less focus on the "table" and more on the "story."
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